1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computer systems, particularly computer systems capable of operating one or more tasks or processes simultaneously. Specifically this invention relates to the method for monitoring tasks in a computer system. Also, this invention still more specifically relates to a system for indicating the status of tasks in real-time and which can be operated at the application level of the computer system's process priority. When used in combination with a computer displayable communications device, this invention serves to provide an accurate visual indicator to the user of the status of running processes in a computer system. For the purposes of this patent application, computer system is defined as one or more computational devices, employing processing units and methods of communicating data between such processing units. Such a computer system may be a single "stand-alone" computational device or a "network" of more than one computational device.
Providing a visual indicator of the status of running processes to a computer system user is useful for providing information the user can use to recognize what tasks are operating as expected, what tasks are delayed and often what tasks and combinations of tasks are causing delay. Such a visual indicator also helps the user recognize when a delay is normal and when the processing of a task has been halted, stopped or delayed. Prior techniques include task monitor methods that provide only a static icon that in effect tells the user to wait, without telling the user how long or even if the process has halted. Such techniques provide misleading information. Another prior art method of solving the task status communication problem involves a monitor and a monitor device that is continually animated, thereby using valuable processing cycles within the computer, such use of processing cycles is often unacceptable and self-defeating. For example, it is often important to know how much of the processing power of a computer is being used by a particular process, and to simultaneously know whether that particular process is still operating. Continuously animated monitor devices will generally give misleading information under these conditions.
An alternative is to have no process monitor at all. Such an approach means that the user of the computer system will be left without any information as to whether a requested computer process is running or has stopped. Failing to have process status information is particularly troublesome where the process is expected to take a not insignificant amount of time. Examples of such processes are: data base searches, complex mathematical or modeling functions, network (including Internet) searches and access, electronic communication, saving, restoring, disk media back-up and other disk operations.
2. Description of Related Art
Computer status monitors are well known in the prior art. Such examples as a moving bar, a series of dots, a hourglass, a clock or a flashing curser are well established. Status monitors of other electronic devices are similarly well known, including the following examples: flashing or strobing lights, panels of light emitting diodes, liquid crystal display devices, mechanical toggle indicators, transparent or semi-transparent panels the permit visual access to the interior of a device whose motion itself give some indication of activity. Other computer system monitor systems include: a system for monitoring computer networks especially during non-business hours for failures and/or major damage that can occur due to fire, theft, water, temperature fluxuations or employee sabotage; a distributed network monitor system for providing status information as to nodes and communication links; a dedicated processor for task I/O and memory management which maintains the status of tasks running on the system and which schedules the execution of tasks; a method for sharing databases among a plurality of applications on IBM mainframe computers; a method for obtaining and controlling the status of a networked peripheral; a method for managing and controlling network bandwidth; a power management symbology display system for helicopters; a method for routing messages in a communications network; a display terminal for data screens associated with host and remote computer processing; a process for analyzing the performance of computer peripherals; and a fault monitor for a numerical control system. However, the applicant knows of no computer process monitor which is designed to present the appearance, thereby communicating, of activity without requiring significant processing resources for its maintenance. Moreover, the applicant is unaware of a computer status monitor which is specifically designed to present a view of the operation of a specific computational process as opposed to the operation of the computer system as a whole.
For general background material, the reader is directed to U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,263,647, 4,851,998, 4,868,782, 5,115,495, 5,150,117, 5,293,377, 5,323,393, 5,386,525, 5,463,552, 5,481,707, 5,542,047, 5,566,339. Each of the above references is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for the material disclosed therein.